Oops. Death toll from the nascent civil war in Iraq is up today. Could GW Bush have screwed things up any worse? Everybody but the most ill-informed die-hards have abandoned Bush. His approval rating is down to 34%.
Monday, 27 February, 2006. 10:10:08 PM
The Washington Post is reporting that the Iraqi death toll over the past few days is higher than previously reported. The sectarian (religious) violence killed 1,300 Iraqis. Bodies in the morgue still had their hands tied and the plastic bags used to suffocate them still over their heads. Some were shot execution style, others were garrotted. Unlike most of the other deaths in this war these people were not killed by bombs. They were dragged from their houses by armed gangs and murdered by hand. The violence seems to be dying down now, but this should be enough to scare anybody.
Monday, 27 February, 2006. 02:33:11 PM
Yesterday, Alex and I took Kristiana to see "Curious George," her first movie in a real theater.
Saturday, 25 February, 2006. 01:04:28 AM
Last month Bush said that 125 battalions were combat ready in Iraq. What he failed to say was that only one was ready to fight without being led by US forces. And now, that single battalion is downgraded, and requires supporting American troops to remain effective.
Thursday, 23 February, 2006. 12:16:23 AM
An hour after the bombing at the Shi'a mosque, over 90 Sunni mosques were attacked with automatic weapons and RPG's. Does this look like a religious civil war to anybody but me? Why are American troops in the middle of this? An even better question is why did Americans cause this?
Wednesday, 22 February, 2006. 01:38:32 PM
Sunnis blew up one of the more important Shi'a holy sites today. It was a golden-domed mosque containing the Askariya shrine located in Samarra where two revered leaders of Shi'a Islam are buried. This is an important event in Iraq, which isn't likely to be noticed by many Americans, but it will probably mark the beginning of the Iraqi religious civil war. Already, Shi'ite muslims are attacking Sunni muslims in reprisal. To make an analogy, it is as if Orthodox Christians from Greece crept into France and blew up the Notre Dame Cathedral. Iran is a Shi'ite nation, and they would undoubted be a major player in any conflict beteen Shi'a and Sunni muslims.
Saturday, 18 February, 2006. 09:50:43 PM
I almost missed this: The Grumman F-14 has flown it's final combat mission. February 8th, two Tomcats (VF-31) from the USS Theodore Roosevelt flew a combat mission. The F-14 first flew in the early 1970's and took over the fleet air defense mission from the F-4. The role of both ground attack and fleet air defense interception now passes to the F/A-18E and F Super Hornet.
Wednesday, 15 February, 2006. 11:36:12 AM
Alex was on the radio.
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006. 02:02:40 PM
Only a drunk, or an asshole, or a drunk asshole would shoot a member of their hunting party or their dog.
Monday, 13 February, 2006. 12:44:04 AM
My new TiVo is a Series 2, 140 hour unit. It's finally all set up and recording some shows, but it doesn't know what I like yet. I've got to get a wireless USB adapter on it so I can use it to play music from my server.
Saturday, 11 February, 2006. 09:08:30 AM
My TiVo finally broke this morning. Bought it in August 2000. It was a series 1 unit, and now they have series 3 units. I'm going to pick up a new one later today.
Thursday, 09 February, 2006. 08:22:28 PM
Media Matters is doing a story on Foxs News' propaganda regarding the King funeral. They showed a video clip of Dr. Lowery and his now famous criticism of the President. The entire church, about 10,000 people, were standing on their feet. There were 23 seconds of applause after Lowery's remarks, and clearly shows the crowd coming to their feet in response. The Fox version of the clip was edited to remove the standing ovation.
Media Matters reports that "After seeing the clip, Roll Call's Morton Kondracke concluded that the audience 'wasn't exactly uproarious in its response' to Lowery."
How very Soviet of them to pull a stunt like that.
CNN isn't in the clear on this either. They removed significant portions of the standing ovation from their coverage too. Why do these news networks do what they do? A close look at the coverage they provide shows that both networks are heavily conservative. Fox News takes the extra step of editing video to show the opposite of what really happened. Getting from 23 seconds of an raucus standing ovation to what was actually reported isn't a small error, or an exageration. It's a LIE. An intentional lie, which most people would never detect.
Watching too much TV news will make you stupid.
Wednesday, 08 February, 2006. 12:29:12 PM
After Coretta Scott King's funeral, we started hearing a chorus of voices from the right, white voices, telling "liberals" and "Democrats" (in this case a euphemism for black people) how they should behave at a funeral. Dr Lowery was on Tucker Carlson's show and told him this:
Well, I don't think so. I certainly didn't intend for it to be bad manners. I did intend for it to -- to call attention to the fact that Mrs. King spoke truth to power. And here was an opportunity to demonstrate how she spoke truth to power about this war and about all wars.The Republican party fought tooth and nail to keep their domination over minority races, to keep civil rights from being enjoyed equally. Now, the Republicans are trying to usurp the legacy of Dr. and Mrs. King, claiming that the revolution was their own.
And I think that, in the context of the faith, out of which the movement grows, we have always opposed war. We've always fought poverty. And we base our -- our argument on -- on the faith, on the fact that Jesus taught us. He identified with the poor. "I was hungry; you didn't feed me. I was naked; you didn't clothe me. I was in prison; you didn't see about me." He talked about war. He talked about he who lives by the sword.
So I'm comfortable with the fact that I was reflecting on Mrs. King's tenacity against war, her determination to witness against war and to speak truth to power.
The shape of the new legacy being invented by the right takes the form of a wish-washy friendly form of dilute equality, and denies the life and death struggle that these people pushed their whole lives. Blunty, Dr. and Mrs. King were radicals who didn't want to just be a bit more comfortable, they wanted to tear the entire support of injustice out by the roots, burn the tenacious weeds of racism, and sow the sour fields of hatred with salt so racism couldn't put roots down again. Dr. and Mrs. King weren't going to just "get along," they were determined to educate and offend the conventional sensibilities of both kings and paupers to bring liberal civil rights to all poor and powerless people.
That's not something that will sit well with a lot of Republicans, especially the racists among them, and that's why we're seeing these lectures from the right about how black people ought to behave at funerals. The right absolutely hated Dr. King, and they still do. Being the party of white people is going to be a losing proposition for Republicans, and they know it. They pay lip service to great people like Dr. and Mrs. King, and try to pass the idea that a multicultural, tolerant America is a Republican ideal, but fail to address real issues of race and poverty with their legislative programs. When someone like Dr. Lowery dares to stand in front of a President and tell him that he's not fooled, the true Republican right reveals itself. If you listen closely, you can hear them saying they have no problem with poor black people, it's just that their skin is too dark and they don't have any money.
Tuesday, 07 February, 2006. 08:46:12 PM
I've watched the coverage of the Coretta Scott King funeral for the past couple of days. In the blogosphere, the right wing blogs are echoing a disturbing sentiment: they're appalled that funeral wasn't a "dignified" affair. To translate that statement into words that everyone can understand, the right wingers were appalled that the attendees at the funerals didn't sit down, shut up, and stay in their place. Instead, they made a ruckus, dancing, clapping, playing music. Daily Kos reported that Kate O'Beirne was Hardball saying "liberals don't know how to act at funerals!" A similar sentiment expressed 50 years ago probably would have used a word beginning with an 'N' instead of "liberals" to describe the crowd. Here are some choice snippets from the Free Republic with some more examples of their racism:
These people have no class. It is amazing to me to see that the Democrats not only have no respect for the law unless it is theirs to use for personal gain. But they no longer even pretend to be civil; they are rude, undisciplined and a bit lower than animals in behavior. What a disgrace! They behave like communists!I think that should be just about enough of that. Disgusting, but not surprising.
Rats can't hep it, a rat, is a rat, is a rat.
A creative freeper [person who frequents the Free Republic website] could take the shot of the President speaking where you can see his chair next to Laura empty and photoshop the pictures of sheets Byrd in his klan garb in there. I don't have the talent, but that is powerful symbolism.
A terrific moment in the funeral (Windows video) occurred when the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery honored Coretta Scott King with the following:
We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there [standing ovation]... but Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty aounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor.It is very important to remember that Dr. King and his wife were very political. Both of them fought hard battles against injustice supported by our political system. They mobilized millions of people to change the people and government of our nation for the better. Bringing politics into the funeral wasn't out of line, it was an entirely appropriate way to honor the life of someone who was dead set against political injustices, particularly poverty and war, which affect millions of powerless human beings both in America and abroad.
Sitting behind Dr. Lowery as he spoke were four Presidents: Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Those words in his speech were obviously directed right at W. and he could do nothing but sit there and eat it up. Without his handlers to insulate him from a public that despises him, the President had a rare experience. Thousands of people were standing on their feet, applauding a denunciation of war. HIS war.
Friday, 03 February, 2006. 01:53:48 PM
Bennett Colorado is full of ignorant people who don't like opera. A parent, Casey Goodwin, said, "I think it glorifies Satan in some way."
Thursday, 02 February, 2006. 12:58:19 AM
Bombshell from Fitzgerald:
In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.This reminds me of the 18.5 missing minutes that Nixon couldn't explain away. It is interesting to speculate that missing e-mails aren't the same as erased audio tape. This implies that somebody has the e-mails and clued Fitzgerald in somehow.
Wednesday, 01 February, 2006. 02:04:58 PM
A guy on Fark told an offcolor telegram joke:
It's like that joke where that woman gets a knock on the door and it's a telegram delivery guy with a telegram for her. "Is it a singing telegram?" she asks. "No, just a regular telegram." "oh, I would really love a singing telegram, can you sing it for me?" "Um, I dunno." "oh pleeeeeeaaase?" "Alright."
*sings* "Your son is dead..ya ya ya your son is dead..."
Wednesday, 01 February, 2006. 01:59:06 PM
End of an era: Western Union has phased out their telegram service. January 27th was the last day.
Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.